Eat Out To Help Out: Brilliance or Lunacy?

[verdantverdure]

On the day the Covid Inquiry convenes I thought I'd ask your opinion on Eat Out To Help Out.

Covid case numbers and deaths were low, as we'd done a phased return out of the first lockdown.

Then we had Eat Out To Help Out and it all kicked off again within weeks.

What did you think? At the time? Now?

YABU Eat Out To Help Out was brilliant, I loved it.

YANBU Eat out To Help Out was a bloody stupid idea that was obviously going to help the virus spread, leading to another wave, more economic devastation, and tens of thousands of us dead. And it didn't even help the hospitality industry because it screwed up Christmas which is usually their most profitable quarter.

There's a whole article @SunnyEgg.

It's not just that one sentence.

Of course it was, we'd had low numbers for a while and EOTHO completely messed that up, cost nigh on a billion pounds and did not help the hospitality industry. Indeed it didn't create any more trade, it just changed the days it happened on.

Bloody stupid idea from people who don't live in the real world.

And that changes it how?

If you or they do not substantiate with a figure from a CMO saying most of the 230k deaths were preventable then it is misinformation for clickbait purposes.

You don’t need to fall for it and spread it further

You don't need to make up hypothetical numbers.

You just need to remember the concrete reality that effective covid measures led to fewer hospitalisations and deaths.

And ineffective or non-existent covid measures led to more hospitalisations and deaths.

You don't need a CMO to give your opinions to you @SunnyEgg

You can just remember what happened.

No you need to substantiate claims if you say ‘most of 230k deaths were preventable’ - prove it.

And since no decent CMO has made any statement along those lines you are spreading the opinion of an editor without basis.

Sadly you are prime target for such clickbait.

Unbelievable. You will swallow any old line as long as it’s hyperbolic enough.

Of course I prefer informed numbers. That you don’t is bad.

We need better media analysis somewhere, people are missing it.

I don't know how to put this any clearer @SunnyEgg

*When the government put effective covid measures in place there were fewer deaths.

When they didn't. There were more deaths.

That's how we know covid deaths are preventable.

Because every time we had effective covid measures in place we prevented them. *

Having maintained very low deaths for months we could have continued that until the vaccines arrived, as most of the countries with the lowest deaths did.

Instead, our government revved up covid with EOTHO and three weeks later our CMO was on tv saying if we didn't put effective measures in place now to prevent them there would be 200 deaths a day in November.

You can keep posting opinions but you still cannot substantiate that line.

If you post most of the 230k deaths were preventable you’ll need to back it up with evidence from a reputable source

Otherwise you are spreading pure clickbait

It was The Lancet who argued most of the deaths were preventable, I thought.

The evidence is in any news article about covid numbers in 2020.

That's when it was proven that we could prevent covid deaths.

Indeed.

Although to be fair, anyone with a working memory of 2020 knows that they are preventable because we did prevent them.

Predictably when we stopped preventing them another 85,000 of us died.

Your views are not based on substantiated figures.

You’ve also incorrectly referenced Whitty etc who have not given the view most of the 230k deaths were preventable.

You are doubling down, sadly as you were pulled in by a sales technique, yes by a line written by the Editor in Chief of magazine, but you don’t have to continue.

It’s on par with any clickbait from the DM or other

Just to point out there can be no 'substantiated' figures for any hypothetical or modelled scenario, by definition.

There are plenty of sound views at the Covid inquiry, eg from Sir Chris Whitty who has not said anything along those lines.

That line written by an editor is not one of them.

It’s ill-informed hyperbole for sales. Which unfortunately some believe.

Honestly, I think it's pretty clear that EOTHO might have accelerated things over the summer and I'm not sure whether or not it was the best use of money, but I don't think it is clear that it made things substantially worse overall, because it depends on what you compare it with. Would we still have reopened schools, have allowed bosses to encourage people to go into the office? What would or wouldn't have happened without EOTHO?

Personally, I think that the one positive about EOTHO was that it broke the argument in favour of not resuming school properly around the same time, tbh. This will be controversial with the teachers on here, but honestly the harm to kids' education had gone on long enough and no one could afford to spend another few months negotiating about when or whether protective measures were sufficiently bulletproof. The government should have done more and earlier for education, should be doing more now, but schools had to go back when they went back and EOTHO made it ridiculous not to.

I think they should have prioritised our children's education over other areas of life to be honest @ChatBFP.

But this is the same government who were told there was a threat to life from RAAC concrete in schools in 2018 unless they rebuilt 300-400 schools a year.

And they decided not to bother.

So it's pretty clear that the education and welfare of ordinary British children is pretty low down their list of priorities.

@SunnyEgg

My views are based on the empirical evidence of what happened.

When our government chose to have effective covid measures in place covid deaths decreased.

When our government chose not to have effective covid measures in place covid deaths increased.

JVT on EOTHO:

EOTHO - were you consulted or involved? Absolutely not. 'First I heard about it was when it was on TV.' 'It didn't feel sensible to me.'

You still need to be within the bounds of what is actually true

Hence Chris Whitty carefully responding in the enquiry. He very carefully does not just throw out lines such as the one you put up.

He did not say most of the 230k deaths were preventable

If he did it would be the cover of every paper for ages. So ask why the Editor of the Lancet has lower standards than the Daily Mail and any clickbait media. Primarily to sell to you and others easily sucked in to a bit of clickbait copy.

Try to apply some clear view thinking. You’ll be better off if you can prioritise informed views from a CMO over hyperbole.

I don't disagree with the general point @verdantverdure

What I was saying, probably not very well, was:

1. If they had made the hospitality industry stay closed, teachers would have pushed very hard to stay remote - frankly, in May/june 2020, there were masses of threads on here with teachers saying they didn't want to return to the classroom without measures being taken that wouldn't have been possible to implement for another few months at least, if at all. We'd have had the "well they haven't opened pubs, so why should teachers be unsafe". It wasn't possible to mitigate all risks. (They shouldn't have closed schools in the first place is my personal view). The strong push towards encouraging people to view hospitality as safe also helped the government in their discussions with unions.

1. If they had reopened hospitality but without EOTHO, would it really have made that much difference to where we ended up in December? I don't think it would have made masses of difference - summer 2020 was beautiful and people were very keen to get out and about, so much of the infection might have happened regardless.

@SunnyEgg

Since we had established the principle that effective covid measures led to a decrease in covid deaths back in 2020 it's not in the least hyperbole to say that covid deaths can be prevented.

By locking the country down forever you might have a chance, but that would be like beheading yourself because of a spot on your nose.

You’ve left out the key part. Is that an admission of hyperbole? Probably

Most of the 230k deaths

That hyperbole is why the headline you appreciate is clickbait.

It is not correct. Only a copy writer can get away with that level of falsity.

Not anyone making scientifically sound statements under scrutiny,

I think it's clear that we went from negligible covid numbers when EOTHO began to Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance calling for increased measures soon after it ended.

Increased contacts leads to increased cases. We knew that.

If we hadn't had EOTHO, if we'd followed the science, if we'd listened to the science advisors, if we'd had prioritised schools over getting people back to the office we might not have been back at weekly doubling ten days after the kids went back to school in England.

We might not even have needed another big lockdown.

Vaccines were coming, if we'd kept covid under better control for another few months maybe 85,000 of us wouldn't have died in the second wave.

We knew how to control it

The government didn't want to though, did they?